On the occasion of her memoir debut, author Madeline Vosch will be in conversation with scholar Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles to discuss Undead: A Memoir of My Suicide (Beacon Press) at Deep Vellum Books at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, May 19th.
A revealing memoir about the complicated truths of surviving a suicide attempt and rethinking the concept of “suicide prevention” to create a world that people want to live in.
Madeline Vosch did everything she was supposed to do when the suicidal thoughts started. Or she tried. Between studying, working 3 jobs to make rent, navigating the impossible bureaucracy of Boston’s welfare system to access food stamps and nominally affordable mental health care, there was not a moment she was not fixated on survival. One night in April 2018, weeks before her graduation from Harvard Divinity school, she walked home from a party with a single intention: to take as many pills as she could stomach, and never wake up.
But then she did. And she was left with a question: what now?
Madeline Vosch is a writer and professor. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Ploughshares, and The Offing, among others. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant and was an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow in 2020 and 2021. An excerpt of Undead was selected as the winner of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest in 2021. She teaches creative writing and humanities at Austin Community College. Undead is her first book.
Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles is Professor of New Testament and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. She received her B.A. from Stetson University focusing on both Philosophy and Russian Studies. She earned her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School and her Ph.D. in New Testament from Yale University.
Dr. Clark-Soles specializes in:
● The Johannine Literature (the Gospel of John; 1, 2, and 3 John; and Revelation)
● Evil, Suffering, Death, and Afterlife
● Disability Studies and the Bible
● Women in the Bible
● Psychedelics and Christianity
● Psychedelics, Religion, and Spirituality
Clark-Soles is a Field Scholar for the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality and an Affiliated Researcher with the PULSE project (Psychedelic Use, the Law, and Spiritual Experience) at the Harvard Law School Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics. She is a member of the Psychedelic Educators Network, the Transforming Chaplaincy Psychedelic Chaplaincy Network, and the Pastoral Advisory Group of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She is certified in Psychedelic Assisted Therapies and Research through the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).